Chester-le-Street, town and former district, unitary authority and historic county of Durham, northern England. It is situated at the southern edge of the Tyne and Wear metropolitan county near the River Wear.

Chester-le-Street, Durham, Eng.

JohnBlackburne

It was the site of a Roman station behind the frontier of Hadrian’s Wall, a defensive barrier erected across northern Britain as protection against raids from what became Scotland. The modern development of the town dates from the 17th century, when it began to grow as a centre for the local coal-mining settlements. With the closing of the mines, the area is now mainly residential. Pop. (2001) 36,049; (2011) 37,164.

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unitary authority and geographic and historic county of northeastern England, on the North Sea coast. The unitary authority and the geographic and historic counties cover somewhat different areas. The unitary authority is bounded to the northeast by the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, to the...

metropolitan county in northeastern England. Named for its two main rivers, the Tyne and the Wear, it is bounded by the administrative counties of Northumberland (north and west) and Durham (south) and by the North Sea (east). It is an urban industrial region that comprises five metropolitan...